Developers, Despair: Half Your Time Is Wasted on Bad Code

A study by online payments firm Stripe found 31% of developer time is wasted on routine maintenance work.

Credit: 2017.phillytechweek.com

A study by online payments firm Stripe found 31% of developer time is wasted on routine maintenance work, draining $300 billion each year from global GDP.

The survey of 1,000 developers and 1,000 C-level executives found that on average, about half of a developer's work time is devoted to maintenance activities such as debugging, modifying, and fixing code. Developers reported work 41 hours per week on average, including 17.3 hours on maintenance work.

Each of the estimated 18 million developers in the world contributes $51,000 to global GDP annually, totaling $918 billion worldwide, according to Stripe. More efficient use of developer time could raise global GDP by $3 trillion over the next decade, Stripe says.

The leading obstacles to productivity cited by developers were maintenance of legacy systems, leadership's prioritization of projects, and building custom technology.